Investors lost N109 billion on the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) in the first two days of the week, following persistent declines in total value of shares listed on Exchange.
Data from the NSE revealed that the market capitalisation, which represents total value of shares on the exchange, fell by N31.1 billion on Monday and further by N78.6 billion yesterday. On Monday capitalisation fell from N9.376 trillion to N9.344 trillion, while it fell further to N9.266 trillion.
Following the same pattern, the NSE All share Index fell from 27,631 last week to 27,205 on Monday, and further to 26,950 yesterday.
Recall that last week, the NSE All-Share Index and Market Capitalization depreciated by 1.31 percent to close the week at 27,269.71 and N9.376 trillion respectively.
Analysts at Afrinvest attributed the decline in market capitalisation this week to profit taking by investors on some blue chip shares. Commenting on the N78.6 billion lose yesterday, they noted, “The poor performance was majorly driven by losses in Guinness (-4.3 percent), Zenith (-3.5 percent) and Nigerian Breweries (-1.6 percent). Consequently, market capitalization declined N78.6bn to settle at N9.3tn. Activity level in the market also weakened at the close of trade as volume traded fell 54.7 percent to 189.3 million units although value traded rose 6.6 percent to N3.2 billion.
“All sector indices save for the Insurance index (+0.4 percent), closed in the red. The Consumer Goods index was the biggest sector loser today (-1.0%) as price depreciation in GUINNESS (-4.3 percent) and Nigerian Breweries (-1.6 percent) dragged the index. Similarly, the Banking index lost 0.8 percent consequent on sell offs in Zenith(-3.5 percent) and access (-4.3 percent). The Oil & Gas and Industrial Goods indices also followed suit, depreciating 0.6 percent and 0.4 percent respectively.
“Investor sentiments in the bourse remained weak today as seen in the market breadth of 0.4x resulting from 14 stocks advancing against 38 declining stocks. The gainers’ chart was topped by Julius Berger (+5.0 percent), LearnAfrca (+4.9 percent) and Unilever(+4.9percent) while Skyebank (-9.5percent), Transcorp (-5.3 percent ) and Etranzact (-5.0 percent) were the biggest losers.
“The persistent dip in market performance buttresses the need for investors to stay cautious especially in the short term, even as we consider the current prices attractive for medium to long term investment positioning.”
